Note on Alexa rankings

Many websites are more popular than their Alexa rankings indicate. It should also be noted that Wikipedia.org may be more popular than its Alexa ranking indicates since two thirds of all Wikipedia articles are in languages other than English.

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Not all websites implement our on-site analytics and publish the results. For these sites, we show estimated metrics based on traffic patterns across the web as a whole. We identify these patterns by looking at the activity of millions of web users throughout the world, and using data normalization to correct for any biases.

The more traffic a site gets, the more data we have to calculate estimated metrics. Estimates are more reliable the closer a site is to being ranked #1. Global traffic ranks of 100,000+ are subject to large fluctuations and should be considered rough estimates.

If a site has Certified Metrics instead of estimated, that means its owner has installed code allowing us to directly measure their traffic. These metrics have a greater level of accuracy, no matter what the ranking.

Alexa Toolbar

Alexa metrics are also enhanced by visitors who have installed and enabled the Alexa Toolbar.

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Alexa could not exist without the participation of the Alexa Toolbar community. Each member of the community, in addition to getting a useful tool, gives back. By using the Firefox, Chrome and IE toolbars, every member contributes valuable information about the web, how it's used, what's important and what isn't. Alexa returns this information to the community as Traffic Ranks, Related Links, and more.

Wikipedia reached the top 20 on a 3-month basis in March 2006 and the top 10 in March 2007.

Jumps in usage are now much more clearly reflected by reach and pageview numbers than by ranking. For instance, in December 2005 Wikipedia's pageviews per million share gained about 500 to 1,600 (meaning it was getting 0.16% of all pageviews recorded by Alexa), which was as much as its total score at around 31 March 2005, but its 3 month ranking improved just two places during the month.

Wikipedia's ranking is variable, and in May 2006 the weekly ranking fell behind the three month ranking for the first time for a very long time, or perhaps the first time ever. Since reaching a ranking of 8 in late 2007, Wikipedia's reach has remained relatively steady, with most ranking changes dependent on other sites gaining or losing popularity.

Wikipedia's Alexa ranking milestones (3 month average)

Milestone

Date

3 Month average

Weekly average

500

11 October 2004

497

288

300

28 November 2004

292

182

200

7 January 2005

199

143

100

29 April 2005

100

68

50

6 September 2005

50

40

30

12 January 2006

30

20

20

2 March 2006

20

18

15

11 October 2006

15

13

10

26 March 2007

10

9

9

17 May 2007

9

9

8

23 October 2007

8

8

7

March 2009

7

7

6

September 2009

6

6

7

October 2015

NA

NA

Selected ranking jumps

Jan 2003: A Slashdotting and other media coverage resulting from the English WP's '100,000 article' press release.

Aug 2003: Featured on CNN's TechWatch television program, on CNN's homepage for a day, and on their Tech homepage for another day.

Jan 2004: New servers come online.

Aug 2004: New machines come online.

Dec 2005/Jan 2006: Large jump facilitated by extra server capacity and helped by a surge of publicity.

Sites in the Alexa top 500

Since Wikipedia is now in the top 10 of the Alexa rankings, it is easier to look at the ones it has not yet passed on a 3 month ranking basis. You can see Alexa's list of the top 500 global websites here. It is not as up-to-date as Alexa's listings for individual sites. From the top-500 list there are links to each site's current statistics.

Sites consistently ahead of Wikipedia

Google (website | graph) [27 April, 2016: 1] - This is the main U.S. based google.com site. Many other countries, including other English speaking countries, have their own versions which Alexa ranks separately.

Yahoo.com (website | graph) [27 April, 2016: 5] - This is the main U.S. based yahoo.com site. Many other countries, including other English speaking countries, have their own versions which Alexa ranks separately.